Winter always evokes a fuzzy kind of memory of my mom and me together, with a cuppa black Darjeeling tea in our hands, sitting on the bed with our legs stretched out, gossiping away. Those memories came back to me today, when Shilpa, Amrita and I lurked out to 'sun' ourselves post lunch. Winter smells different. I love the smell. I love the morning sun, early sunsets, and the wintry darkness. I love snuggling into the blanket. (Lately its been more fun, because snuggling is a 'game' for Meeshu. She gets super excited at the prospect of sleeping with mumma...so much so that she remains awake giggling like a school girl and looking at me like a forlorn lover. She is growing up real fast, and inasmuch as I am enjoying it, I hate to admit that I have already started missing her baby days.)
But somehow, winters didn't mean much to me in school. Perhaps because summer holidays were longer, hence more fun. Also summer holidays meant visiting native places and holidaying with cousins and relatives.
The best part about winters are the clothes....I love sweaters and those bulky clothes....it never makes one look bad. Contrary to those summer skimpy clothes which scream out loud and clear that they are not to be worn by people with tyres. read ME.
Winters strangely make me very nostalgic. I especially associate the making of Anand, Pune and Cloudend with Winter. Pune was 
beautiful in Winters. Of all the things we did there, my most favorite and vivid of all memories was, going to 'Bourgeois' to have hot chocolate. Bourgeois would open only in the night at about 10pm. It was in fact a kirana shop that would get converted into a Rang De Basanti zone with a whole lotta young dopes hanging out with their girl friends/BFs, sucking on a ciggie and sipping hot cocoa/coffee. Cool. Siddhu, Vikki and Madhu usually came to pick us on their bikes.( Not Vikki. Vikki always walked. He would walk from one end of the the city to other like Gandhi. Vikki, you deserve a separate post. Soon.)Siddhu was like the Hutch puppy...he followed us EVERYWHERE. I had my own Scooty (hhhhmmmph) and Joy was most often my pillion rider. Coming from Hyderabad, I thought that was one of the coolest things I did in Pune. Invariably we'd end up meeting the rest of the nocturnal beings from our batch. Wormie would be there off and on. He mostly had other commitments, which most often than not involved appointments with pretty women. I loved those winters.
Anand was mostly shot in November-December-Jan. And the shoestring budget 
only expected us to work across shifts. We often had double shifts. Almost all had a bad cough and cold. I clearly remember I would gulp down an extra doze of corex and remain happy though the night. I was always around the bonfire. Sometimes Raj would drop in to pick me up late in the night and he'd also stop and join his favorite Old monk gang (a group who discreetly sat behind the sets with rum and coke to beat the biting cold, away from Sekhar's sight).
However, the best winter of my life was spent with Raj, Manu and anubha in Cloudend, Mussourie. It was our second trip together and staying in the 1858 British bungalow has more than just fuzzy memories. besides other things, my mouth can still taste the oily hot alu pakoras and smell the burning wood of the bonfire.
Next winter, I hope I have some really warm stories to tell about this year.
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